State of the art drive cylinders may comprise a cylinder barrel extending between two cylinder heads and designed in the form of a profile tube which owing to its profile renders possible certain additional functions, as for example the attachment of sensors in mounting grooves or the passage of actuating fluid through integrated ducts. In the special case of a design in the form of an aluminum extruded profile an extremely economic integration of numerous additional functions is possible.
Presently there is however the problem that cylinder barrels designed in the form of extruded profile parts may only be produced up to a piston size of approximately 125 mm in diameter at the most without running into substantial problems. In the case of larger diameters it is no longer possible to readily ensure the dimensional accuracy and the desired low degree of roughness of the piston engaging bore defined by the cylinder barrel to the desired degree. Consequently in the case of drive cylinders with a large piston diameter recourse is had to so-called tie rod cylinders in the case of which the cylinder barrel is smooth and circularly cylindrical and the cylinder heads are braced by rod-like ties distributed about the outer periphery of the cylinder barrel. The type of design does however involve high costs of production and requires technically complex features in order to provide for additional functions of the above mentioned type or indeed of any type.